These disciplines...

These disciplines, which in the nineteenth century became nearly completely “scientific” and rationalistic, were more in search of tradition and esoteric knowledge in the eighteenth century than is usually believed, although this search was rarely satisfied in a complete manner and certainly did not succeed in resuscitating the traditional point of view in such a way as to affect in any perceptible way the process of the desacralization of knowledge which was taking place at that time.

Nor was this extensive transformation which was expected to happen in the West as a result of the dissemination of Oriental teachings and which was called a “second Renaissance” by Schopenhauer ever to take place during the nineteenth century when so many important works of Oriental wisdom were translated into European languages.3 Paradoxically enough, the nineteenth century, which from the metaphysical point of view marks the peak of the eclipse of tradition in the West, was also witness to the widespread interest in the study of the Orient and the translation of the sacred scriptures and works of a sapiential nature into various European languages by such master linguists as A.

H. Anquetil Duperron, J. Hammer-Purgstall, and Sir William Jones. This was the period of intense activity in Orientalism which, despite its horrendous misdeeds, misinterpretations-both intentional and otherwise-condescending attitude toward natives, and servility to various political causes of European colonial powers, made available those hymns of gnosis and theophanies of pure metaphysics as the Upanishads,4 the Tao-Te-Ching, and much of Sufi poetry.

The history of Orientalism during this period is not our concern here for most of this activity was not related to either the rediscovery of the sacred or the revival of tradition but, in fact, served in many instances to destroy both the traditions it was studying and what remained of the Christian tradition which was often relativized by those who tried to make use of the presence of other religions to destroy the claim of Christians to the possession of truth in an absolute sense.5 What concerns us here, therefore, is the case of the few philosophers and poets in the West who, being in quest of the sacred, sought to rediscover tradition in Oriental sources in an age which stood totally opposed to the traditional ideal.